Little Dark Age

by 
AlbumFeb 09 / 201810 songs, 44m 4s
Synthpop Neo-Psychedelia Psychedelic Pop
Popular Highly Rated

MGMT’s music has always pinballed between accessibility and experiment, pop, and psychedelia—a tension that has produced some of the catchiest, most synapse-stretching music of the young century. Reining in the freak-outs of 2013’s *MGMT*, the band’s fourth album plumbs their (relatively) accessible side, refracting ’80s-style synth-pop (“Little Dark Age,” “One Thing Left to Try”) and ’60s jangle folk (“When You Die”) through a warped, surrealistic sense of humor—a sound at once cheerful and violent, eerie and inviting, light and thrillingly dark.

1599

7.0 / 10

MGMT’s fourth album marks a shift in tactics. Abandoning the belabored excess of their last two albums, they opt for streamlined synth-pop.

8 / 10

The psychedelic indie heroes make a surprise return to pop with their fun-tastic fourth album

9 / 10

Little Dark Age is proof that MGMT are nowhere near done with inter dimensional meddling.

8.0 / 10

The album feels like it’s alternately melting and lifting, warming and woozy.

The week's biggest new releases reviewed by our exports

The psych-pop duo spool out concise tunes and a likable Luddite message on their fourth LP.

7 / 10

It's an unfair fact of life that every new MGMT album must be compared to their 2008 breakthrough Oracular Spectacular. In the decade since...

8.5 / 10

After a four-and-a-half year break, MGMT is back with their fourth album, Little Dark Age.

8 / 10

More than ten years have passed since Andrew Van Wyngarden and Ben Goldwasser, better known as MGMT, released their now revered debut album

(Columbia)

6 / 10

More than 10 years on from their debut 'Oracular Spectacular', MGMT's fourth LP is tongue-in-cheek set of songs about death, blowing out brains and telling people to go fuck themselves.

For better or worse, Little Dark Age is an album for its time: moody, backward-looking, a little depressed.

7.5 / 10

Review of 'Little Dark Age' by MGMT: MGMT's newest record is their best in a decade, a delightful 80s synthpop throwback with a dark sense of humour.

After two albums of wilfully awkward music seemingly designed to lose them fans, the duo return with some unironically gorgeous melodies and a dash of hallucinogenic weirdness

65 %

Little Dark Age drips with unease.

Album Reviews: MGMT - Little Dark Age

4.1 / 5

MGMT - Little Dark Age review: Don't call me nice.

7 / 10